Ars Technica: banned in Iran!

We're kind of a big deal... to the Iranian government. Ars Technica is now …

"403 Forbidden": that's what Ars readers in Iran are now seeing when they try to connect to arstechnica.com. We were alerted to the block by a loyal Iranian reader late last week, and we checked our traffic statistics over the weekend; we do, in fact, appear to be banned.

The block began following our second piece of coverage about the Stuxnet malware that allegedly targeted an Iranian power plant. That was published on September 27, the last day in which Iranian readers could access the site, as you can see from the second spike on the graph above. After that, traffic from Iran drops to zero. Our Iranian readers say that this is what they get now when they try to visit the site, which we are told is the standard response returned by the Iranian government's filter when users try to access a blocked site.

The point of the ban isn't clear, but it definitely highlights how easy it is for governments to start cracking down on whatever sites they like once they have the proper tools in place and have centralized all Internet links leaving/entering the country. And, as the traffic logs show, it can be surprisingly effective at discouraging casual users from viewing unwanted content.

What else has Iran blocked recently? We would ask our Iranian readers to let us know, but—sadly—they may have a hard time reading this post.

I love that something like piracy has totally bitten Iran in the ASS. Its one of the greatest stories I have read on this site. Iran is and always has been a backward country even tho they have given the world a lot of good things through out the centuries. They should boot the theocracy and start all over with Democracy as their people have always wanted.

Hrm. It doesn't seem to me that the material in the article is that offensive. Of course, I'm not a censor and don't think like one (I far prefer the attitude attributed to Voltaire. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."). My bet is that the site was banned due to some of the comments attached to the article.

In fact, I'd like to specifically call attention to Swerus and CaptRiker regarding Siemens' comments implying that Iran was pirating the software exploited by the worm. That seems the sort of thing that they might be sensitive about.

Wow...i am so sorry for the people in Iran. Events like this make me appreciate the country in am right now.

You mean the US? The country that is actively trying to pass a law that would let them do this by shutting down domains whenever they want to?

Right. It's totally irrational to appreciate a country which is talking about blocking domains but hasn't yet more than one appreciates a country which is actively blocking domains. Not that I don't think we should fight the "we can shut down whatever we feel like" law, but it's ridiculous to imply that because the US is considering doing something wrong, then there's no room to criticize other countries for actually doing it.

I mean, unless you're just trying to get an argument started about how much the US sucks - but that would be trolling.

Iran is and always has been a backward country even tho they have given the world a lot of good things through out the centuries.

*Ahem* They're only backward NOW because the U.S. and the British thought installing a despot was a better bet than a democratic republic, cutting off any nascent progressives at the knees and and radicalizing the frothing nationalists and religious extremists in the same stroke. Just sayin'.

Wow...i am so sorry for the people in Iran. Events like this make me appreciate the country in am right now.

You mean the US? The country that is actively trying to pass a law that would let them do this by shutting down domains whenever they want to?

Care to elaborate on said law? The only such law I've ever heard of the "OMG! Obama wants a gov'ment kill switch on the internet!" law was totally misrepresented in the media. The law actually reduced the presidents power to cut off the internet by formalizing something which is already an implicit and unregulated part of the president's state of emergency powers. Right now the president could already order parts of the internet shut down in a state of emergency, the new law would have put in a proper judicial and regulatory framework to allow something like that to happen under formalized rules instead of the current and nebulous "Commander in Chief gets to do what he wants in emergencies" kind of regulations which are in place now.

They should boot the theocracy and start all over with Democracy as their people have always wanted.

They've tried that once...and they were shot at, arrested and held without charge, and tortured in prisons. "Liberation" by a foreign power (i.e. the US) is of course an even worse alternative, as history has shown both during and after the Cold War. Ultimately, they're stuck in quite a shitty position.

I do have an idea though - what about smuggling in satellite dishes + satellite broadband modems and covertly supplying the people with completely uncensored internet access? The government would be powerless to filter that.